The assembly ended, and hundreds of figures dispersed in a bustling stream.
No matter how dissatisfied the students were, with all the teachers in agreement, the Rookie Competition rules could no longer be changed.
Wu Yi First High School's cafeteria was in full swing.
All the students were still discussing Free-for-All Mode, guessing who had the best chance of taking first place.
The table occupied by the Luoying team was exceptionally quiet.
Yu Lei, Zhong Xian, and the others sat around the table, staring at Li Qingshan in utter astonishment.
He held his chopsticks and shoveled food into his mouth like mad. In less than a minute, he had finished one tray and moved on to the second.
Zhao Hongzhou swallowed and hesitantly asked,
"Brother Shan, are you very hungry?"
"Not really." Li Qingshan found a moment to reply, then swiftly cleared his tray, set down his chopsticks, and rose to his feet.
"I'm in a hurry. I'm leaving first."
Everyone was stunned. Yu Lei asked in confusion,
"The Rookie Competition is tomorrow. Where are you going?"
"Back to sleep!"
His voice drifted back, while his figure was already more than thirty feet away.
They stared blankly at his retreating back, question marks filling their heads.
Back in the dormitory,
Li Qingshan washed up briefly, then lay back down on his bed and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the familiar circular platform came into view.
Five statues stood silently at the edge of the platform.
With a thought from Li Qingshan, the statues vanished.
A hundred meters away, roars rang out as one man and four beasts appeared.
"Your strength is a little lacking, but I can only make do with you."
Li Qingshan grinned and charged at the five monsters barehanded.
Ever since his strength had improved, ordinary Body Tempering fifth-level opponents like Wolf Poison and You Qingya could be killed with a wave of his hand. Naturally, they had lost their training value.
However, Mizong Step specialized in twisting, turning, and shifting. Only in battle could it improve at the fastest rate.
Li Qingshan darted among the Fierce Beasts. To achieve his training goal, he deliberately suppressed his speed, relying entirely on bodily instinct as he used Mizong Step to evade their attacks.
Second by second, Mizong Step's proficiency increased bit by bit.
At the same time, more and more wounds appeared on Li Qingshan's body, blood soaking through his clothes.
He had suppressed his speed to the Body Tempering second and third levels.
Relying on nothing but Great Accomplishment Mizong Step, he could only struggle from left to right under the attacks of five Body Tempering fifth-level opponents.
Fortunately, stamina was unlimited in the Martial Arts Space, and surface wounds would not affect his movements.
More than ten hours later, when his mind could no longer hold on,
Li Qingshan suddenly accelerated, counterattacking with all his strength and killing the one man and four beasts with his bare hands.
Then he fell flat onto his back and sank into a deep sleep.
Once he woke, he summoned the Monster Projections again and continued training.
The cycle repeated itself, and he had no idea how much time had passed.
Surrounded by five monsters and barely evading their attacks, Li Qingshan's eyes suddenly lit up. His right foot stepped back.
Wolf Poison's claws were striking from behind. That step seemed as though he had deliberately moved into Wolf Poison's attack.
But just before the claws made contact, his back tilted slightly aside, narrowly evading the blow by a hair's breadth.
Not only that, this unfathomable step let him break directly out of the five monsters' encirclement.
"The Marvel of Square Inch! So this is the Marvel of Square Inch!"
Li Qingshan burst into loud laughter, his mind clearer than ever before.
At the moment of breakthrough, it was as though enlightenment had been poured straight into his head, allowing him to instantly grasp the Marvel of Square Inch.
The Marvel of Square Inch was profound beyond measure.
With Li Qingshan's current realm, he could neither explain it clearly nor put it into words, yet instinctively, he knew what to do.
His speed had now been suppressed to the Body Tempering Second Level, yet beneath the attacks of five monsters, Li Qingshan moved as leisurely as if strolling through a courtyard.
Every attack seemed about to strike him, yet always missed by a hair's breadth.
Unlike Great Accomplishment Mizong Step, which sensed danger and predicted it in advance, that was the approach of someone trapped within the game.
Perfect Mizong Step had already allowed Li Qingshan to step outside the game.
Within a square inch, every point was a foothold!
The Marvel of Square Inch lay beneath his feet!
Inside the dormitory at night, Zhao Hongzhou's snores thundered like rumbling thunder.
Li Qingshan silently opened his eyes as an illusory Status Panel unfolded before him.
[Li Qingshan] [Realm: Body Forging 46/100] [Technique: The Thirty-Sixth Set of Broadcast Gymnastics—The Stars Are Calling 1237/3000 (Great Accomplishment)] [Martial Techniques: Mizong Step (Perfect), Wind Shadow Blade Perfect] [Function: Martial Arts Space Lv1 (9/100)] [Available time: 6 years 203 days] [Time Flow Rate: 1:10]
The Status Panel had changed slightly, but it was not worth calculating in detail.
Li Qingshan glanced at the perfected Mizong Step, closed his eyes, and gradually drifted into sleep.
"Brother Shan, wake up!"
Zhao Hongzhou's voice rang beside his ear. Li Qingshan groggily opened his eyes, feeling somewhat unaccustomed to it.
To be honest, he had not slept in reality for a long time.
With the Martial Arts Space's 1:10 Time Flow Rate, sleeping in reality was undoubtedly a waste of training time.
"Brother Shan, Ren Ming brought us breakfast."
Zhao Hongzhou raised his right hand, which held a large bag of steamed buns.
Li Qingshan nodded. After washing up quickly, he and Zhao Hongzhou finished breakfast in the dormitory.
Afterward, the two stood beside the Virtual Combat Pods.
The First Year Rookie Competition would take place that morning. They only needed to lie down and wait for it to begin.
"Brother Shan, what weapon do you think I should choose?" Zhao Hongzhou rubbed his hands excitedly.
Though he had never used it even once, he had gathered every bit of information he could.
Li Qingshan glanced at the Chopping Knife in the corner. He had given it to Zhao Hongzhou after he no longer needed it.
"Choose your Chopping Knife. Switching to a new weapon at the last minute will only backfire."
Although the Martial Arts Space allowed one to freely choose cold weapons, the vast majority of students still chose the weapons they used in reality.
After all, reality was the foundation. Getting used to divine weapons and sharp artifacts in Virtual Space would not help one wield real combat strength.
"Alright, I'll listen to you."
Zhao Hongzhou readily took the advice. Unable to wait any longer, he lifted the pod lid and lay down inside.
Li Qingshan smiled and shook his head, then lay down in a Virtual Combat Pod as well.
Wu Yi First High School, meeting room.
It was still the same meeting room as yesterday, with more than a hundred teachers seated around the table.
At the center of the room, one hundred Projection screens were arranged in neat rows.
Each Projection screen corresponded to a square platform one hundred meters on each side.
Lü Jing stood beneath the screens and introduced,
"The entire Battle Platform is ten kilometers on each side. With one hundred screens, we can clearly observe every detail of every battle."
The Martial Arts Teachers nodded in satisfaction.
Though there could only be one first-place winner, they still needed to understand their students' exact strength so they could provide targeted guidance later.
"Only 256 First Year students are competing. A Battle Platform ten kilometers wide is probably enough for them to run themselves ragged."
One teacher joked, drawing a round of laughter.
The First Year Rookie Competition participants were generally at the second or third level. The current Battle Platform was indeed far too large for them.
"Don't worry. The ten-kilometer platform mainly takes the Second Year students' strength into consideration."
Lü Jing pointed a finger, and the scenes on the hundred-plus screens suddenly magnified, changing from squares one hundred meters wide to squares ten meters wide.
"The First Year students will be deployed together in the central area of the platform, within a one-kilometer radius."
As his words fell, figures began appearing across the screens.
The teachers first quickly found their own students, then began searching for the Wu Yi City teams.
Among the ten high schools in Wu Yi City, once they banded together, they were undoubtedly the strongest.
The Wu Yi teams were easy to find. They were mostly groups of three or four, all positioned in the center of the platform.
But after seeing the exact distribution, every Martial Arts Teacher frowned.
Because there were not ten teams at the center of the platform, but eleven.
Moreover, the extra team consisted of three men and one woman. They stood at the very center, surrounded by the other ten teams.
Lü Jing had played dirty!
The thought flashed through every teacher's mind, and their eyes involuntarily shifted toward Yuan Hongyan.
The only people present worth Lü Jing targeting were those from Wuyuan City.
Yet Yuan Hongyan merely frowned and said nothing.
"Hahaha, you surrounded our Luoying in the middle. What a fine arrangement!"
Wan Keshan held a teacup and laughed aloud.
"Damn! Lü Jing is that bold?"
All the teachers froze, immediately preparing to step in and break up a fight.
Wan Keshan's reputation had not come from nowhere.
Lü Jing unconsciously took two steps back and laughed awkwardly.
"It was randomly generated by the system. I really didn't deliberately target Luoying City."
Of course, it had been deliberate. Since he had heard Li Qingshan's name yesterday, Lü Jing naturally could not simply sit back and do nothing.
But before Wan Keshan, he would not dare admit it even if he had ten times the courage.
"It's fine, don't be afraid. I really am praising you."
Wan Keshan smiled warmly and rose to walk to Lü Jing's side.
Just as everyone thought he was about to make a move,
Wan Keshan wrapped an arm around Lü Jing's shoulders, raised his head to look at the screens, and burst into loud laughter.
"Your arrangement is excellent. Truly excellent!"
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